Your Creative Intentions: The Monday Post ~ August 12, 2013

by Miranda on August 12, 2013

Commit to a regular creativity practice. Regularity — a daily practice, if possible — is key to staying in touch with how you make meaning.

What are your plans for creative practice this week? Given the specifics of your schedule, decide on a realistic intention or practice plan — and ink that time in your calendar. The scheduling part is important, because as you know, if you try to “fit it in” around the edges, it generally won’t happen. An intention as simple as “I will write for 20 minutes every morning after breakfast” or “I will sketch a new still life on Wednesday evening” is what it’s all about. If appropriate, use time estimates to containerize your task, which can make a daunting project feel more accessible.

Share your intentions or goals as a comment to this post, and let us know how things went with your creative plans for last week, if you posted to last week’s Monday Post. We use a broad brush in defining creativity, so don’t be shy. We also often include well-being practices that support creativity, such as exercise and journaling.

Putting your intentions on “paper” helps you get clear on what you want to do — and sharing those intentions with this community leverages the motivation of an accountability group. Join us!

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If you’re an artist or writer with little ones, The Creative Mother’s Guide: Six Creative Practices for the Early Years is the essential survival guide written just for you. Concrete strategies for becoming more creative without adding stress and guilt. Filled with the wisdom of 13 insightful creative mothers; written by a certified creativity coach and mother of five. “Highly recommended.” ~Eric Maisel. 35 pages/$11.98. Available for download here.

During the last 6 months, I’ve set an intention to write creatively every week day. It’s working! IMHO creative energy is like a muscle, work it more and the output will come more easily, flow more easily. And it feels great! I get body pains or feel angry or ‘stuck’ if I don’t create somehow. Love your blog, thank you!

I haven’t been here much this summer, but my next project is to paint the studio. Even though we’re probably moving, the plan is to re-envision this space as a multi-user creative space. Now that my oldest daughter is crafting up a storm, I need to get her desk out of the living room!

Secondly, it’s my birthday this week and I want to paint and do some gelatin printing with the kids. A day of creative play without worrying about what else I should be doing. To that end I got quite a bit of house cleaning out of the way yesterday.

Well, I met last week’s goals! (YAY!) took a break I knew I would take, now, it will be tough to get back into it. So my goals this week:
– write 500 words per day on my ms
– write 2 blog posts
– schedule my first blog interview

I think that’s enough for this week. Again, thanks for helping me be accountable!

Hitting the wall with my WIP. While my 500-word daily minimum has served me beautifully over the past nine months, I now need to do some heavy lifting with my 150K-word manuscript. I’m finding it difficult to do macro-level editorial editorial work within the “edges” of each day. I need serious time for this serious work. I’m trying to figure out if I can organize my work schedule (when the kids go back to school in 2.5 weeks) so that one day each week is devoted to the manuscript. I need to keep the daily quota going too, but will only end up feeling like I’m spinning my wheels if I don’t get my arms around this unwieldy beast of a manuscript.

I had a Project Life session over the weekend — even though I’m still way behind, I did our summer vacation and will work backwards from there.

More in the time crunch: My 8-year-old is playing football, which means four practices a week (last week through the end of the month). He prefers that I stay at the field (for now) — so we’re out of the house from about 5:00 to 7:45, little brother in tow (which has its own challenges). I’ve been having a hard time stopping the work day in time to get dinner done before we leave — another work in progress.

Also had a relapse with my high hamstring tendinopathy — so frustrating! Haven’t been to a yoga class in nearly four months.

Good idea, Heather — the hard part is the taking of the weekend. The domestic machine is so complicated over here that bowing out for a weekend puts a big strain on my husband. He recently offered to take the two youngest kids out for the first Saturday of every month — and I should take him up on that — but I’m worried about not having more regular contact with the WIP. It’s so hard to get back in when I’m not in daily….I’m going to have to suck it up and get back to my 5:00 am writing sessions when school starts. No matter what I try, the early hours are the only slot I can consistently count on….

plugging away at pics, a bit of writing and family management of the extraordinary summer variety daily. summer of uber necessary travels, furniture replacement, physical therapy, wisdom teeth extractions for teens and spouse, kindergarten, college and sped high school entrance preps, all while keeping a piece of my mind.😉

writing is small, but happening, still researching best modes for kickstarter and self-publishing, slight backburner to all of above.

welcome!

Thanks for stopping by! In this creative community, you can share your creative intentions, receive support in making those goals happen, and discuss all things related to creativity. While we're primarily focused on the issues that creative mothers encounter, all are welcome.

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